No 'high-fiving' or 'champagne-popping': Milwaukee CEO slams GOP convention as economic 'failure'

With Justice Juan Merchan having moved Donald Trump's hush money/falsified business records sentencing from July 11 to September, there will be nothing to interfere with his participation in the 2024 Republican National Convention — which is set to begin in Milwaukee on Monday, July 15 and continue through Thursday, July 18.

According to Reuters, Trump's running mate will speak on July 17. And Trump will accept the GOP's presidential nomination on the final night of the convention.

Republicans have been touting the convention as a major economic boost for Milwaukee. But according to Newsweek's Kate Plummer, some local business owners are expressing their disappointment.

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"Around 50,000 delegates are expected to gather in the area around the Fiserv Forum, where the event will be held, during the convention," Plummer reports. "However, a business owner raised concerns that there has been a lack of event bookings in the area during the period."

That business owner is Gary Witt, president and CEO of the Pabst Theatre Group. The company owns four major venues in Milwaukee — the Pabst Theater, Riverside Theater, the Vivarium and the Fitzgerald — and recently told the website The Recombobulation Area that all of them are likely to be empty during the convention.

Witt described Republican National Committee (RNC) organizing as a "failure" and "underwhelming," adding, "It's 100 percent a case of 'overpromise, underdeliver,' on all parts, by everybody."

"We were told it was going to be one way over and over and over and over again when (the RNC) was confirmed, and it has turned out to be almost anything but the way that we were told it was going to turn out," he said. "We were sold a storyline of how this is going to go, and basically, it didn't go anything at all like the storyline that we were sold."

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Witt lamented that he's been hearing the same thing from other Milwaukee businesses.

The CEO told Recombobulation, "This business that we own operates only in the city of Milwaukee, and for us to succeed, the city of Milwaukee has to succeed. And at this point in time, I don't see the RNC delivering that kind of success. That kind of anticipated economic impact that everyone was high-fiving and champagne-popping and press-conferencing about."

Witt added, "At this point in time, none of that really has come true, for the most part."

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Read Newsweek's full report at this link.